


entirely alive

by trapsintheforest



Category: Psycho-Pass
Genre: Character Death, Hallucinations, Light Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2014-12-20
Packaged: 2018-03-02 12:15:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2811635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trapsintheforest/pseuds/trapsintheforest
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kougami still sees Makishima.</p>
            </blockquote>





	entirely alive

**Author's Note:**

> Quotes are taken from "Death by Landscape" by Margaret Atwood which is one of my favorite short stories.

 

 

 

“This is ridiculous.” Kougami takes a cigarette and agitatedly taps it against his knee.

 

“Isn't everything?”

 

“Yes, but not like this. This isn't how it was supposed to go.”

 

“You didn't see it, even I couldn't really, but there's something left unresolved between us, Shinya Kougami.”

 

Kougami scoffs. “You make it sound like we've broken up. I killed you, you died. Why are you still here?”

 

“You know, we never got to talk all night.”

 

“I think that's because I passed on that offer.”

 

“I think it is because we never had any time.” There's a tinge of melancholy to Makishima's voice.

 

“I didn't want there to be time.”

 

“Have you ever read the short story “Death by Landscape?”

 

“No.”

 

“It's about two girls at a summer camp. And one of them falls off a cliff.”

 

“Cheery.”

 

Makishima chuckles.

 

“Why are you here?” Kougami asks.

 

“Why am I here?” Makishima responds. He reaches out, trailing his fingers across Kougami's face.

 

Kougami turns aside against the touch. When he looks back, Makashima is gone.

 

 

 

The next time happens when Kougami is in bed, about to sleep. He feels the presence there, even before he notices Makishima is propped up behind him on the bed.

 

“I never finished that story.”

 

“If you finish it, will you leave?” Kougami can already feel himself nodding off. He fights to stay awake. It's terrifying to feel safe enough not to.

 

“After I finish it, you may not want me to.”

 

“No story you tell could be that powerful.”

 

 

 

 

“The camp is on a lake. They search the lake forever, but the body of the girl is never found. The other girl leaves the camp and returns to her ordinary life. She grows up. She gets married, has children. After her husband is dead, she lives alone in an apartment where all the walls are covered in paintings of landscapes.”

 

Kougami breathes out deeply, and falls into unconsciousness.

 

 

 

 

 

In the morning, he goes to the bathroom to shave, and nearly cuts himself when he sees Makishima appear in the mirror behind him.

 

“Leave me alone, Makishima.”

 

'Don't you want to know how the story ends?”

 

“I've already seen this story end. It ended in that field. What's the point in telling me another story?”

 

“The sun set that day. But the sun also rises. It sets and rises again and again. It takes a very long time for the sun to die.”

 

“You are not the sun.”

 

“Yes. Perhaps you are more like the sun. Because the earth will die when the sun does. And my life also depends on yours.”

 

“I'm tired of your meaningless analogies.”

 

“Then I will finish the story.” Makishima reaches forward and places a hand on the back of Kougami's shoulder, and he does not shrug it off. “There is such poetic beauty in it. I think I will just quote it for you.”

 

“ _She can hardly remember, now, having her two boys in the hospital, nursing them as babies; she can hardly remember getting married, or what Rob looked like. Even at the time she never felt she was paying full attention. She was tired a lot, as if she was living not one life but two: her own, and another, shadowy life that hovered around her and would not let itself be realized, the life of what would have happened if Lucy had not stepped sideways and disappeared from time._

_She looks at the paintings, she looks into them. Every one of them is a picture of Lucy. You can’t see her exactly, but she’s there, in behind the pink stone island or the one behind that. In the picture of the cliff she is hidden by the clutch of fallen rocks towards the bottom, in the one of the river shore she is crouching beneath the overturned canoe. In the yellow autumn woods she is behind the tree that cannot be seen because of the other trees, over beside the blue silver of pond; but if you walked into the picture and found the tree, it would be the wrong one, because the right one would be farther on."_

 

_"She is here. She is entirely alive.”_

 

“Okay.” Kougami says harshly. “You can go now.”

 

“Not yet.” Makishima says. “I want you to see first.”

 

“See what?”

 

“Do you remember the question I asked you? Right before you killed me.”

 

“I remember.”

 

“It's been a year, and you're living in a run down apartment. You drink and smoke excessively. You are, quite frankly, a waste of space.”

 

“I'm just living.”

 

“You aren't living. You can't live.”

 

“You certainly make it difficult.”

 

“Exactly. I distract you. As if you were not living one life, but two.”

 

“I am not like the woman in that story, if that's what you mean. We are not friends, as she was with the girl who died. I hate you Makishima. It is a simple emotion. ”

 

“You don't hate me. That part of you was satisfied when you killed me.”

 

“Why then?” Kougami is shaking with frustration. “Why are you still here?”

 

“Why am I still here?” Makishima turns Kougami gently to face him.

 

“I..” He feels the ground beneath him shift. Makishima is terrible, but he is right. Every since that day in the field, he's felt himself grow smaller and smaller, his mind slip sideways into an apathy, a bottomless space where something used to be.

 

That day in the field. The most important day of his life. How are you supposed to live after that? Other people would forget. Akane would forget.

 

The most important day of his life..

 

“I can't win.” Kougami clenches his hands to his sides. “I kill you and you still come back. There's no way to escape.”

 

“There is.”

 

Kougami looks up in surprise.

 

Makishima's face is deadly serious; no hint or trace of a smile.

 

“You can let me in.”

 

Kougami laughs bitterly. “That sounds more like a forfeit to me, Makishima.”

 

“Do you know why the woman with the paintings ended up the way she did? She had a choice to make. It's the same choice you have. Die that day. That's the first option. Keep your thoughts and your dreams in the past, relive the same scene again and again. Never admit the fact that the person dying was all that ever meant anything to you.

 

The second option is to make this clear to yourself. Drag the other person forwards in time, to live _with_ you.

 

In our society, we have a hierarchy of relationships. We see our loved ones as the most important to us: our husbands, our wives, our children. Then we see our friends. First, our closest friends, then our acquaintances, then those we dislike.

 

Where do I appear, Kougami? What label do I fall under? As you said, I am not your friend. I am not family.”

 

Makishima steps closer. “All I want from you, Kougami Shinya, is one thing. To be included, under the label titled, “ _yourself_ ”."  He taps Kougami in the chest, and the touch feels like a fatal stab.

 

When Makishima traces his finger down Kougami's chest to take his hand, Kougami does not pull away.

 

 

\------

 

 

“Kougami!” Akane calls through the comm. “I think he's headed your way.”

 

It's been a couple months since Kougami returned, with Akane's help. He feels purposeful, exhilarated. 

 

He slips into the dark corner behind the door, hearing footsteps.

 

“To your right.” Makishima says behind him.

 

He steps out in front of the door, takes aim, and shoots.

 


End file.
